Guide to Doing Business
in Suriname

By the 1986 amendment of the Banking and Credit System Supervision Act 1968 (Wet Toezicht Bank- en Kredietwezen 1986), credit unions, insurance companies and pension funds were placed under supervision of the Central Bank of Suriname (the “Central Bank”). For insurance companies a new act (the Supervision Act on Insurance Companies) has been in the making, but is yet to come into force .

In this new act, like in the Supervision of the Banking and Credit System Act 2011 (Wet Toezicht Bank- en Kredietwezen 2011), a licensing system was created in which the Central Bank became the sole authority to grant a license to an insurance company. Another similarity is the provision to instruct the authorized bodies of the insurance company to follow a particular line of conduct. If the company does not comply as instructed, the Central Bank can place the insurance company under guardianship or silent custody.

The insurance companies currently active in Suriname are:

• Assuria;
• Fatum;
• Self Reliance; and
• Parsasco.